TRAILBLAZER SPOTLIGHTS


“North Greenville has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.”


caught the attention of the North Greenville community.


“The more I learned about North Greenville, the more I wanted to talk about North Greenville’s history, so I started a Facebook page, a blog, and an Instagram. Anytime I found out something that was interesting [about the university], I would make a post about it and so that seems to have grown,” Beasley said.


Joanna Beasley ’07


Illuminating NGU’s History to the Community


North Greenville University is steeped in rich history and alumna Joanna Beasley is eager to share it with her community. Beasley, a Tennessee native, is now living her dream as an archivist at NGU. Her love for history developed in the first grade when she had a teacher who was passionate about Tennessee history. The passion her teacher shared with her sparked a passion in her own life and since then, Beasley knew she wanted to pursue a career in public history, whether it be with a museum or archives.


After earning her degree in history from NGU in 2007, Beasley interned at the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville, TN. During that she felt an even stronger affirmation that this is what God has given her a passion for. Two years after graduating from NGU, Beasley came back to work on campus as a part-time archivist for a year before transitioning to a full-time position elsewhere. However, she returned to work full-time in 2015 as the technical services librarian at NGU. In 2022, she transitioned into the role of university archivist. Beasley has been using her role to share her love for the university’s history with others. Shortly after starting her new role, she created a Facebook page that has


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“Dr. Fant has been so supportive and I know he shouts it out frequently and it’s gotten some attention from that,” she said. “Really when it comes down to it, I wanted some way to share my love of the school and its history. That’s been my biggest outlet.”


Though she has shared many interesting facts about the university through the Facebook page over the last two years, her favorite discovery she has posted is a digitized slide including pictures from the 1950s of the second administration building being torn down and the Donnan Administration Building being constructed.


“Those finds were incredible to me,” Beasley said.


Her roots at North Greenville University run deep, as it has been a part of her story since she was a young girl.


“North Greenville has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember,” she said.


“My dad, Lonnie Wiley, ’78, went here. Even though I grew up in Tennessee, I knew my dad had gone to NGU,” Beasley said. “I came to Centrifuge Camp here in middle school.”


“I knew in middle school when I came here for Centrifuge that I wanted to come here,” she said. “But since learning about the history of the school I would say that sharing the history of NGU has become my passion.”


As she recalls the history of her alma mater, she can’t help but be amazed at how God has kept His hands on the


institution as it was on the verge of closure in the early 1900s.


“It never ceases to amaze me how many times God has clearly worked to save this school from being closed,” she said. “If you look back at the nineteen-teens, North Greenville became a mountain mission school with the Home Mission Board and almost every other mountain mission school was closing when the Home Mission Board stopped their mission school program, but North Greenville Baptist Association – the people God put at North Greenville at that specific time – were able to guide the school through it all.”


“It became a college and that was a huge step that saved the school because public high schools were growing and there was really no need at that time for Christian high schools, so us becoming a junior college really opened the door for North Greenville to be able to continue,” Beasley continued.


She has been able to give presentations about the intriguing history of NGU at several organizations, including NGU’s Auxilio and Travelers Rest Historical Society.


Her goal is to bring to light the amazing things God has done at NGU over the years through the efforts of those He has placed in leadership positions since the school’s beginning in 1892 to present. “It’s hard to understand how we got here if you don’t understand the full story,” she said. “In North Greenville’s case specifically, how we got here is how we are here. We wouldn’t be here without all the people God put in leadership roles over the years.”


As an alumna and now an employee, Beasley said she is grateful for NGU and everything the university means to her as she continues to tell the story of the school that is very near to her heart. “Other than faith, family, and friends, NGU is my life.” ◆


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